Published on 12, July, 2020
I have noticed my six year old seems to be more bothered by noise suddenley. He has always found certain noises troubling but noisy environments he could cope with but now he can’t. Does Sensory Processing worsen or reach its peak at a certain age?
In my experience noise sensitivity is greatly variable and dependent on a lot of factors. It is not something that peaks at a certain age and it seems to be something that I struggle with more and more as I get older.
As others have already said a lot is dependent on what else is going on in life. If I am relatively calm then I will be able to tolerate noise more. However I have my limits, even when I can tolerate a noisy environment for a short time I need plenty of recovery time in a quiet environment afterwards.
Once I reach my tolerance limit to a specific noise my brain seems to become more and more sensitised to it. In those circumstances any exposure to that noise, or even just general noisy environments, will result in an increasingly intense meltdown reaction.
I would suggest that it is important to identify and block out as much of the troubling noise as possible, preferably long before it gets to the stage where he reaches his own tolerance limit.